Long seen as the neglected State of Australian professional sport, the race has begun for sporting codes to establish themselves in Tasmania, and football should be elbowing its way towards the front!
Like the rest of Australia, Tasmania has a proud and storied sporting history. Incredibly, nearly 120 years after European colonisation the Tasmanian sporting community is still fighting for their own teams to compete on the national sporting stage.
One of the highlights of Australian sport over the past couple of COVID-ridden years was the emergence of the Tasmanian JackJumpers. The return of professional basketball in Tasmania was hugely received after the disappearance of the now defunct Hobart Devils, more than 25 years ago.
The JackJumpers bursted on to the scene taking Tasmania and the NBL by storm. Parochial home support backed by strong local media hype helped pack out Hobart’s Derwent Entertainment Centre and Launceston’s Silverdome, proving there was not only excitement for ‘Tassie’ basketball but a hunger to have representation on the national sporting stage.
Just twelve months after the NBL expressed it’s interest in a Tasmanian franchise it had convinced local stakeholders, including the State Government, and secured a Tasmanian license for the 2021-22 NBL season.
An extraordinary inaugural season saw the JackJumpers finish fourth in the regular season and go on to qualify for the NBL Grand Final Series, before narrowly falling short to eventual champions, the Sydney Kings.
The relative on-court success swiftly and positively translated to the wider Tasmanian community with the JackJumpers and Basketball Tasmania credited with a rise in basketball’s participation rates at grassroots level in a statement by Tasmanian Minister for Sport and Recreation, Nic Street.
“Participation in the sport is up by 7.4 per cent in 2022 with thousands of young Tasmanians wanting to shoot hoops after watching the JackJumpers wow sell-out crowds throughout the NBL season,” the statement read.
The rise in basketball’s participation isn’t surprising given the recent popularity of the sport across the country, though in Tasmania it still falls behind codes like association football with 17.7% of all sporting participants in the island state choosing to play the world game according to Sport Australia’s 2021 AUSPLAY data.
Tasmania also leads the country in female participation, making up 28% of all Tasmanian football players.
A massive 6.8% of the entire Tasmanian population plays association football with the sport being by far the most popular with juniors according to a 2021 Football Tasmania release
“Football’s popularity was most notable among juniors, with 23.8 per cent of Tasmanians aged between five and 17 playing the sport, with this figure reaching 42.2 ad 40.4 per cent in the Clarence and Hobart areas respectively.”
In 2008, a taskforce headed by Hobart-based businessman John McGirr began the task of finding funding for a Tasmanian A-league Club, the group went on to register the name ‘Tasmania United FC’ complete with full colours and club crest.
By April 2011 the final report of the Tasmania United Business Case was released with its concluding recommendation being to “continue with the development and preparation of an A-league team license bid”.
Bizarrely, the state government of the day abruptly pulled their support, stating they would only support a model where Football Tasmania controlled all aspects of the bid. Although the bid effectively collapsed, interest in association football in Tasmania has continued to thrive with participation rates continuing to soar.
Considering Tasmania’s rich history and connection with Australian Rules Football and its proximity to Victoria, many would perceive it to be an ‘Aussie Rules’ state, despite this many within AFL circles have often rubbished suggestions of a Tasmanian based AFL club, with the league opting instead to expand into non-traditional regions in non-traditional states such as Western Sydney and Gold Coast which has produced mixed results.
In a recent meeting between AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan and the Tasmanian Premier, Mr McLachlan stated that a Tasmanian based team would be contingent on a new stadium, which could delay the license for up to a decade.
“They should have a team …. but it’s a problem and I can’t see them having their own team for least a decade, which is about as far out as I can look.”
“This team needs and will have a new stadium if you want a licence, and I think Tasmanians would expect that,” McLachlan said.
Unsurprisingly, media icon Eddie McGuire also weighed into the debate suggesting that one of the struggling Victorian teams should make deals to play home-games in Tasmania, an idea rejected by Tasmanians and further squashed by Tasmanian Sport and Recreation Minister, Nic Street who was adamant that a relocated team would not be supported by his government.
As the A-leagues and Football Australia (FA) emerge from the COVID downturn including their own period of transition which handed control of the A-leagues to the Australian Professional Leagues (APL), there’s a feeling that a transformation under more favourable conditions isn’t far away.
Football Australia has made no secret as far as its ambitions to establish a national second division and a recent report by The Examiner suggested that Football Tasmania’s chats with the APL regarding an A-league license are progressing positively. Whether a Tasmanian team is established directly in the A-league or one of Tasmania’s existing clubs such as South Hobart enters the proposed second division remains a discussion for another day.
As long as AFL club presidents continue to bicker, Gillon McLachlan continues to hold Tasmania to ransom for a shiny new $750m water-front stadium and Eddie McGuire continues to recycle the idea of relocating a Victorian club, It’s likely that Tasmanian sports fans will remain starved of their own AFL Team for some time. In fact, some media outlets are hysterically reporting it could contribute to the death of Australian Rules Football in Tasmania if support for a bid isn’t forthcoming.
Meanwhile, Football Australia, APL and Football Tasmania should be recognising this as an opportunity, where else in Australia would they be able to make their mark without the AFL and NRL standing on their toes?
As far as competitive sporting markets go, Tasmania is a clean slate.
Football Australia and the APL should be doing their utmost to encourage, facilitate and welcome Tasmanian sports fans into a national league that wants them there, whether that’s into the men’s and women’s A-league competitions or the proposed national second division.
Football continues to thrive in Tasmania, state pride remains strong and a forecast for a steady rise in population and economic growth is encouraging, and if the relative success of the Tasmanian Jack Jumpers is anything to go by then football is in a strong position to establish itself on the apple isle.
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